For a hundred years, psychologists have written about the need to think well of oneself. But Mark Leary, a leading researcher on self-consciousness, thought that it made no evolutionary sense for there to be a deep need for self-esteem.15 For millions of years, our ancestors’ survival depended upon their ability to get small groups to include them and trust them, so if there is any innate drive here, it should be a drive to get others to think well of us. Based on his review of the research, Leary suggested that self-esteem is more like an internal gauge, a “sociometer” that continuously
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